On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 4:46 PM, Charles Matthews
<charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
I do know with absolute certainty that if some
admin had blocked me in
error early in my editing my response would have been to forget about
the site and not attempt to edit it again for many years, if ever.
This seems to be a big Web issue (no, I don't mean that some fool of an
admin omitted to block Gregory Maxwell, and now we have to live with the
consequences). I wondered what Google said on such phrases, i.e. what
conventional wisdom was on people generally giving websites one chance
only to impress them. "How to ensure I never visit your site twice" is here
http://virtuelvis.com/archives/2006/11/a-guide-for-losing-visitors
which is a web developer's view. In a sense, by now, Wikipedia should
have put together a view on this issue. One excuse would be that it is
only in the last couple of years that we have had the "steady state"
position (millions of generic readers, of whom a small proportion are
potential editors).
It is like WP:BITE, but explaining why new editors are the lifeblood
of Wikipedia, and how losing potential new editors is a drain on
resources. Someone (Charles?) *should* write an essay on this, and
publicise it widely.
The other thing that can happen is when some controversy about
Wikipedia is reported in the news media, and lots of new accounts
arrive at an article, the response is sometimes less than ideal.
Blocking such accounts for any disruptive behaviour they engage in,
and pejoratively labelling them as so-called "single-purpose
accounts", may be technically correct, but in my view the correct
response is to topic ban them until they have "learnt the ropes" (i.e.
have built up a track record of editing elsewhere in Wikipedia).
In other words, there is a tension between WP:BITE and the combination
of WP:SPA and WP:DISRUPT.
Controversial articles are the worst place for new editors to start.
Carcharoth